Saturday 7th - Dear Marmaduke

My Dear Marmaduke,

Within hours of our having set sail, I was violently sea sick whilst listening to ‘April in Portugal’ on the gramophone, and we were plagued, thereafter by a large cortège of rather big albatrosses and a few sharks.

Yours

P K Randolph

Thursday 5th May - Dear Marmaduke

My Dear Marmaduke,

My navigator is a strange little man, no larger than 4’3 and has only one eye and one tooth, in the middle, at the top. He knew only a few words of English and repeated one phrase when I met him.

“You like for good night big ladies?”

To this I replied that I didn’t understand the nasty little man and that he should just show me his vessel. He laughed heartily.

Yours

Piers.

Wednesday 4th May - Dear Marmaduke

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My Dear Marmaduke,

Damn that arrogant cock Tattler!

I today received a curriously worded letter addressed to me in hand and delivered by an unknown messenger by cover of dusk, slipped under the front door.

It interested me emensley as it carried a post mark from the Indian subcontinant and made reference to an issue of urgent attention. Apparently my uncle’s plantation had fallen into the hands of a guerrilla army who, in an attempt to usurp and annex the last bastillion of the British Empire, planned to start trading the bananas for arms, I have chartered a rather small rusted china-clipper and will set sail for Malta from where I would board a cargo ship bound for India.

Duke, I am concerned in no small part to read this on two accounts. Firstly that my uncle has no plantation I was aware of, and secondly that Tattler will be left at large in the home counties without me to keep the peacock strutting cad in his place. This could not have been timed in a more inconvenient manner, as it is the May ball season and just the time that Tattler holds one of his huge balls all the ladies talk about. I do hope my dearest does not attend while I am away.

I have left my house and estate in the hands of my Panhandle, my odious but trusty manservant with strict instructions that he should not again enter the village naked, and that he should leave the goats alone. As usual he protested, and even suggested the compromise of wearing a fez, but I assured him that people in Surrey didn’t like that sort of lewd behavior.
Damn that arrogant cock Tattler!


Yours Piers K Randolph

The curious tale of Hazrat Babajan and the Hound - Dear Marmaduke

Dear Marmaduke,

Blast damn and bury those cursed flies!.Duke, I really must apologize for the delay in replying to your dinner invitation last month. I am sure it was a pleasant affair..Under duress, I attended a society function where I was to speak on the brief but significant encounter with Hazrat Babajan and the significance of the facial hirsute prophet’s sandals – both left footed..Although, to my delight Lady Isabelle Clover was in attendance, I felt ill at ease with the whole paraphernalia and pomp. My levels of tolerance towards polite company these days leaves me severely frayed at the edges as I battle to keep my composure. Indeed it is all I can do to avoid severely horsewhipping the nearest scoundrel who tries to engage me in meaningless conversations about the mundane world they inhabit. Is there no one capable of a meaningful intellectual sparing?.

I do find comfort in staring covertly at Isabelle’s splendid neckline, which is usually enough to distract my hostility towards these cretins..Anyway, damn it all to hell and beyond! Tristian Tattler also made a rather obvious entrance with all his usual pomp at around 10. I was half way across the hall to give him a right thrashing, when an Irish wolf hound, ran across my path and near spilling my glass of Romane Conti was followed by a scurrying female figure being dragged wholesale after it on the other end of the leash!.Damndest thing! .

I heard a mans voice calling after the wench, Ms Harris who resembles one of these new genetic experiments I read about in the institute paper – half female hobbit and half Cornish pixie with what can only be described as the gobble of an hysterical turkey for a laugh..The room erupted into spontaneous laughter and hysteria as all manor of hell broke loose. Tables flying, cream cakes tossed and spectators diving for cover as the dog was frenziedly pounding back and forth dragging Ms Harris along..In the fracas, a plate of Bavarian sausage was upturned and sent flying, saucer like, across the spatial contours of the barrel vaulted ceiling..No sooner had this weird scene unfolded than I turned to spy the collision of the said sausage which caused a dangling chandelier to begin whirring perilously high over Isabelle’s head like the sword of Damocles..I dived headlong, like a prancing leopard, over the heads of some of the more static audience and landed on a cake trolley. This gave the wheeled apparatus enough torque and drive to continue in a westerly direction towards the plate glass French windows. Half way across the oak floor however, one of the castors hit an ill fitted iron nail and jarred my progress. Spinning like a jenny I continued a few degrees off my westerly path, but still able to reach out and grab Lady Isabelle, pulling her from danger, delivering her to a place of safety at the extremity of the hall and saving the day. Or at least that was what I thought had taken place.

I awoke on the terrace looking up a crowd of faces all jeering at me and one gentleman tutting severely as he prodded me with his walking stick, shouting ‘Damn pervert’! As I looked at my right hand clutching what was left of Isabelle’s skirt and half of her undergarments!

I immediately realized I had misjudged my grasp of the lovely lady by some inches as I span out of control, and instead had managed to grip only her garments – half removing them as she screamed and shielded her nether region from the on-looking crowd. Added to my dismay, Tattler had been at hand (literally) to assist her in shielding her peach-like derriere), the Chandelier had fallen on the hound which was now indiscernible from the Bavarian sausage, and all eyes were on me as sole perpetrator of the entire scene.

I sprang to my feet once I had realized my error and as if inhabited by the ghost of Hazrat Babajan herself, began speaking in tongues as I created a ruse under which my actions could be accounted for. The crowd were spellbound by my performance and I spent the remainder of the evening feigning a recovery from my psychic encounter to rapturous applause and a hefty sale of my book on the subject..I later apologized to Isabelle for any incident caused beyond my control.

Yours PK